The Left Hand Paradox

Something struck me as a practiced yesterday afternoon. No, it didn’t come flying at me through the air.

It was, rather, a sudden moment of appreciation racing through my brain. And it was quite dizzying, to be honest.

As many of you know, lately I’ve had to ease up and slow down to rehab my left side. Appears I pushed myself too hard too soon after dislocating my shoulder last June; this an added insult to the effects of focal dystonia already challenging my left hand for the past decade or so.

And this brings me to the point of my appreciation. You see, I was playing Kreutzer #2, you know, the one Jack Benny made famous.

And I was playing it real slow and real light.

My goal was to bring every movement within my hand under the conscious control of my mind – one’s muscles and nerves can get to acting quite ‘funny’ after the kinds of trauma I’ve experienced.

Not only that, I wanted my left hand to be absolutely still, relaxed, and well-formed – that is, wrist pretty much straight, fingers curved and out over the string, yes, even the 4th finger.

Then, I asked my fingers to reach to the notes, even when separated by two or three strings.

And that’s when it struck me. The number of finger movement possibilities that exist, in even a relatively simple etude, are mind boggling.

Think about it, let’s say you’re on 1st finger ‘B’ on the ‘A’ string. Now consider the location of every note your fingers might be called to reach from that ‘B’. Then consider the same number of possibilities that would extend from the next note you do choose to take.

So in just four notes of music, one beat of time, perhaps, there must be tens of thousands of possible finger arrangements that can arise – I’ll leave to my father, a mathematician, to do the math.

The point is, the control and flexibility we ask of our hands are extraordinary. It’s a wonder anybody can play in tune or play with any kind of velocity when viewed at such a level.

But we do.

So the question is, how best to assist our body in accomplishing this amazing feat.

This is, in fact, what intelligent practice is all about. So you can forget about the Nike slogan, ‘just do it.’ I mean, that may be fine for a weekend warrior, but it’s not going to do a thing for a real, honest-to-god ‘Yehudi wanna be.’

No to develop real technique you’ve got to get Principled.

And I’m not talking about micro-managing every movement of every muscle forever and ever either. Yet at certain times – say, beginning stages of violin study; and under certain conditions – recovering from injury, or inability to play in tune with velocity – you’ve got to slow down, get clear about what’s what, and put your house in order.

The good news, as I’ve said many times before, is there is nothing quite as rewarding, or feels so good, as making this investment in your musical development. No matter what stage you’re at in the scheme of things.

In a real sense we don’t practice to be perfect. We must practice BEING perfect in order to improve.

Now if you think you might need a little assistance figuring out what ‘practice being perfect’ is all about I might be able to help you. After all, it’s kinda what I’ve spent the past several decades looking into. And what, in the past 3 years, I’ve poured into quite a number of instructional DVD programs geared to all different levels and abilities.

So come, take a look at the whole list ofone-of-kind instructional DVD programs I offer. Then, go get on with practicing.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. And don’t forget about the Violin Mastery Masterclass/Seminar. This is a great time to come and get some ‘up close and personal’ time with me in awesome surroundings.